Food miles and why they're crap

Several days ago I tried to convince my boyfriend, who studied economics at university, that he should write some blog posts on food and economics. Specifically, I suggested food miles, which I think is a pretty misleading concept. The conversation went something like this.

'I don't want to,' said he. 'Why?' said I.

'Because it's so obvious to me that transport makes up such a small part of the cost of producing food,' he replied.

But not obvious to that many people, evidently.

When you live literally at the ends of the earth, an awful lot of the stuff that you consume is very likely to have been imported. In particular, non-meat sources of protein such as kidney beans just aren't that widely produced in New Zealand. So, if you were to take food miles seriously, it could present a practical dilemma for your average thoughtful vegetarian. As a colleague of mine put it, it's a bit ironic to substitute Taranaki produced beef for Indian grown lentils.

Except, it's not. My boyfriend is dead right when he says that transport makes up a very small amount of the total cost of producing food. International research has shown that 80% of the carbon costs of food production are incurred before the food even gets to the farm gate. Think about it. What goes into producing a kilo of beef? The average cow gets through an awful lot of food. Then there is all the things that go into producing that food, such as fertilizer, water, machinery and associated fuel. It's a bit of a cycle.

Then there are the moral implications of taking food miles too seriously. As someone in an exporting nation, it's a bit rich to pass up on similarly exported good. Especially something that comes from a developing nation, that might not have the sort of internal markets to sustain an industry. I doubt that the demand for coffee in Kenya could ever meet its own supply, but it does other, less coffee laden countries a huge favour when it exports to them.

A lot of this comes down to the concept of comparative advantage. If it's that much more efficient to produce something over the other side of the world, then the other side of the world should probably keep doing what they're doing. A crazy example of this is the fact that Londoners choosing between British or New Zealand produced lamb are much better off choosing the Kiwi stuff, as it is four times more energy efficient than the local equivalent, even taking into account the large distance it has traveled. This difference is mostly allowing to the clover-rich pasture in New Zealand that allows beef farmers to use much less grain feed than their British counterparts.

How can you tell if imported food is efficient? Well, the price for a start. If Chilean grapes aren't prohibitively expensive, then the cost of carbon and whatnot probably isn't off the scale. After all, would a producer keep supplying something if it was really expensive to make? Things like fuel and fertilizer cost an awful lot, and if it's cheaper to grow things where the soil doesn't require as much chemicals, then this could off-set any extra shipping.

But really, the real kicker as some have argued, is the method of transport used to get your groceries from the supermarket to your own kitchen. Flying several ton of bananas into Auckland is efficient; driving to the dairy to pick up a loaf of bread is not.

Although it's a simple way of measuring the environmental cost of food production, it is by no means a complete one. I for one will be eating my kidney beans with a clear conscience.